About the history of animal therapy

Abstract

The animal therapy as a therapy method is really old. People in the antiquity
used the healing power o f animals. Éven Hippocrates, the well known doctor used
horses to strengthen the trunk muscles. In the middle Ages the knowledge o f the
antiquity lost, the people used animals as tools. Nowadays they started to discover
these methods again, especially in Germany, in the UK and in the USA. In these
countries there were created many organisations in the past 50 years. They train
animals (dogs, horses, dolphins and so one) to help more and more children and
adults with different kinds of psychological, intellectual problems or locomotor
disorder. Unfortunately in Hungary this process is not as known as in abroad.
There are only a few organisations who deal with this ancient technique.
Primarily we do my research about this topic in the library and on the inter-
net. Unfortunately there is not any information about animal therapy in Hungári-
án, but we can find many data in Germán and English.
Doing our research we learn that there are many people, who inquire about
this method, but unfortunately in our country it won’t be as generál as in abroad.
The reason of it is mainly the serious and expensive medical examinations o f the
animals. That’s why this tendency cannot spread in Hungary.